Alumni develop sustainable urinal

Engineer Bart Geraets and product developer Jan Schoeters are aiming high with their Ipee technology. It uses sensors to measure the concentrations of urine in a toilet, as well as how much water is needed to flush it away and prevent bad smells. But how on earth did they come up with that idea?

“By getting bored one evening standing at a urinal. What if you could play computer games that tested your aim at the urinal? We made it onto the TV programme De Bedenkers (The Inventors) and were featured in the international news. But we ran into a problem. By then we could detect where the urine was on the surface, but after a while that surface got really dirty.”

Now they’ve succeeded in quantifying just how dirty it is. “It was never our ambition to take the games further, but we’ve actually managed to take this patented technology to the market.” The ball really started rolling at a big expo in Frankfurt recently. “Before the end of the year we’ll be on board with the biggest wholesaler in the Netherlands. And the biggest one in Germany is interested too.

They not only have a 50% market share in their own country, but are also in the top three in 22 European countries.”